Education Planning

Every parent wants the very best for their children and a major part of this is providing for their education. Whether they will attend an international university here in Switzerland or study in the UK or US, you need to ensure you have prepared in advance for this expense.

Whether you have one or four children this is probably going to be one of the most expensive investments you will make in your life time. Second only to your house purchase. With this in mind it is extremely important that you start preparing as soon as possible. Waiting till your child is 10 years old will increase the financial burden dramatically. We advise all of our clients to start investing and saving as soon as their child is born. This will allow you to save at a comfortably level for your children’s future and more importantly mitigate market risk over the long term allowing you to also benefit from compounded growth.

How much will it cost?

For your child to study in the UK it will cost £20,000.00 per annum. This is made up of £9,000.00 for university fees and an additional £11,000.00 for living costs and other study materials. Their course is likely to be over a 4 year term costing £80,000 per child.

When calculating the cost you also need to factor in inflation. Just like you would when planning for your retirement. University fees increase at a much higher rate compared to our standard cost of living, so you need to work off a rate of inflation close to 5% and not 3%. The fees we mentioned above are if your child is starting university now. If you had a 4 year old child this amount would be closer to £196,000.00 in the year 2034.

How much do you need to save?

The most effective way to save for your child’s future is by saving a small amount per month, starting from the day they are boon. If not sooner. Below are two examples. You will see how much extra you will have to save if you waited until your child was 10 years of age. We call this the cost of delay.

Example 1 – Saving for 18 Years

In order to accumulate £196,000.00 over 216 months you will need to save only £455.05 per month. This takes in to account an average growth rate of 7% which is the average return of equities over a 10 year period.

Example 2 – Saving for 8 Years

In order to accumulate £196,000.00 over 96 months the amount increases to £1,528.88 per month. This again takes in to account an average growth rate of 7%.

So as you can see from the above two examples, if you wait and delay your plans it will cost you a great deal more in the future. This could even result in your financial goal becoming unachievable.

What to do next

If you would like to learn more about how you can prepare for your children’s education more effectively, you can contact us either via email at info@suisserock.com or leave your details below.